fading into BLACK
by Penultima
Summary: He doesn't like the black. It has green and red lights inside, but there are nasty things in there that hurt him. When he escapes to the light, the bad men always try to take him back. He needs someone to make the black go away. very abstract no pairings.


_---Splash splash splash---_

His feet were wet. He had soggy shoes and soggy socks on and his feet were wet. It felt cold. His hands were dry but they felt cold too.

"**Stop walking around everywhere, we can't spend every minute of the day looking for you." **but then he wouldn't have anywhere to go. he'd be there and nowhere at once and walking around at least gave him some direction. the bad people always tried to make him stay. they wanted him to get lost.

All he could see was the black black of everything and those fuzzy green capsules everywhere. Some of them were big with fuzzy dark things moving in them, making scary sounds. Lots of them were really small, blinking blinking. There were red lights too, blinking. Were they alive?

_---Splash splash splash---_

What was wet? Was there water on the floor?

"**See the one over there? He doesn't disappear when we leave him. He stays quiet and waits. Can you do that?" **disappear? was he disappearing? was he invisible to them now? the nice man could always find him though. he wasn't invisible to the nice man. that was a good thing.

The water was shiny. Shiny, watery green liquid. There were shiny ice-shards gl…glus…glass in the puddles. There were wavy red lines in the puddles. The lines made him feel sick. He could see his feet, toes poking out from the shallow puddles.

Puddles?

He looked away from his feet. The puddles didn't matter. The shiny green liquid didn't matter. even though it burned, and it froze his skin and he would feel like a popsicle dipped into cold, cold water that just _burned_ What mattered was the shiny white shapes at the end of that black with green-red lights. He liked the light.

_---Splash splash---_

"**Why can't you be like him and stay still? Does it actually get through that thick skull of yours? Do you know how much we spend on keeping you in there? On replacements and glass and containment liquid?" **he can't understand what they're talking about. it's all wild buzzing in his ears that he can't comprehend. _buzz_

_---Click---_

He was only a few inches from the shiny shapes. One last fuzzy green light was shining in front of him. Just an arm's reach away. He put his hand on it and pushed. Then a long shiny white shape opened up and widened and took him out of the darkness.

"**If you keep escaping we'll put you to sleep and you won't even see anything. It will all be black."** at least a few people out of all those white bodies with yellow faces made sense. they had yellow faces with different hats and a black bodies. the one with the black hat talked to him. but _he_ always said scary things about seeing nothing but black. he hated black. but at least they never actually put him to sleep.

He was in a bright white place. There was no green or red here. But there were little black shapes and dots and shadows that didn't matter. What mattered here was the light. He liked the light. Because he could see everything and nothing could harm him. The darkness made him blind.

---_tap tap tap tap---_

Tapping, tapping, tapping. What was that? Monotone and small and harmless sounding but he was scared. Tapping, tapping.

"You again." The fuzzy voice was behind him. The nice man was standing there behind him. The person who talked to him. The one who made sense. There was someone else too. Yellow face and white body and a mean, mean voice. The bad woman who was with the bad, bad man. What was his name?

"**Bah. If this is all you're going to amount to I might as well throw you away. How much more mako do I have to stuff you with? Come here."** he would put a long shiny gray thing into his arm and his blood would _burn_ and everything would go black and numb. bad man. he was a bad, bad man.

"We warned him." The bad woman. Her voice was croaky.

"He doesn't understand." The nice man. He sounded sad. Why?

"We can't make him understand anything, can we?" Croaky. He didn't like that voice.

"But if Professor Hojo…" Hoo-jo. The very bad man. He didn't like him. Because he made things burn and then freeze and go black. The nice man doesn't like him either. But wait. Another yellow face?

---_tap tap_---

"**If you do what we say he won't hurt you anymore. Okay? Just run, jump, whatever we ask you to do. Okay? Then he won't hurt you anymore." **the nice man only lied about those things. because if he ran and jumped and did whatever it was they would take him to a black black place and stick shiny gray into his skin. it hurt.

"What is it?" The mean, mean man. Something hot was in his throat. He opened his mouth and it sounded scary. It was rumbling and it scared him. Would it scare the mean people away?

"Oh, Professor! He came out again...—he's growling at me..!" The croaky woman was scared, moving away, but still there.

"He's done no damage…" The good man was still there. But he was upset. Not because of him, but of the bad, bad man.

"He will, if we don't discipline him." Croak croak croak.

"_Discipline_?" the bad, bad man laughed. It scared him. The laugh made the scary rumbling stop. "He barely understands what we say." Of course he did. Did he? It was all fuzzy and confusing. Buzzing in his ears. Buzz…

---_tap tap tap tap tap._

The yellow face was so close. It was weird. There were shadows everywhere on it. It was scary. His throat went hot and he could hear the rumbling. This time his chest was hot too. This mean, mean man did something bad. The mean, mean man backed away. The yellow face shrunk a bit.

"**I'm sorry, okay? Don't be scared. I don't want to hurt you. This is all I can do.—No, no. No shiny green here. No, no. Hush. I won't hurt you. I promise. I promise."** only the nice man to trust. only the yellow faces with the black bodies to trust. no one else. everyone else wanted to hurt him.

"He's a humanoid monster…" the croaky woman was annoyed. "a savage beast."

"He only does that because he's scared. You're scaring him. You're making him angry." The nice man with the black hat was still there.

"Hah! What do you know?" Bad, bad man. Bad, bad man. The nice man is upset.

"I have been trained to deal with humans, beasts, anything that disrupts security. This is animal behavior. Instinct. If you treat him well he will respond positively. Haven't you trusted the Turks with the handling of the few monsters you wish to keep? We have taken care of them well. With careful handling they can be tamed. Even this one." The nice man sounded cold. Sounded distant. But the nice man was talking to the bad man and not him.

"Hmph." The croaky woman makes his chest hotter. Why? The bad man's face looks happy. Kind of.

"You win, this time." The bad man still sounds mean. But the nice man seems to feel okay now. The nice man wasn't upset anymore. The rumbling stopped. The croaky woman laughs. Not nicely.

"You've tamed him already. Perhaps you might be right." Bad, bad woman.

"From now on I entrust you and the rest of the Turks with handling him. We'll still conduct tests on him, but only if it needs professional hands. Otherwise we'll leave it to you. Now take him back."

Back back back. They said that everytime he was in the white shiny place. Then people would come and drag him back to the black green red room. He didn't want to go back. The rumbling was louder. Meaner. Angrier. But the bad people were going away. Only the nice man with the black hat. The rumbling stopped.

"The black won't hurt you anymore." The man sounded really nice and kind. He wanted to trust the nice man. But the black was awful. He didn't want to go back.

But the nice man was with him. Maybe he could make the nasty things in the black go away? Maybe. Maybe.

"Good. Come here. Yes, here. Follow me." The white opened up to black. Any other time he would twist this way and that and try to get away. But the nice man was with him. Maybe the bad things in the black would go away.

_---splash splash splash---_

"**I won't hurt you. I promise, I promise, Cloud." **only the black bodies and yellow faces to trust. no one else. Maybe they could make the bad things go away?

---_click._

* * *

Notes:

Just to clear things up. The 'black' refers to the darkness of the lab in Shinra Mansion. The 'white' is a brightly lit corridor somewhere there. :) I made it up, because I'm not sure if there is such a thing there. The "yellow faces with white bodies" are men/women in labcoats, "yellow faces with colored hats and black bodies" are, surprise! surprise!--the Turks. If you still don't get it, the "nice man" just happens to be Tseng. :)This is NOT a Yaoi fic. I just thought it would be cool.

For the people who don't exactly get it; Cloud routinely escapes his pod and 'escapes' to the brightly lit corridor. If he keeps doing that, they threaten, they'll make him unconscious. the rumbling is basically guttural growling. Basically something like that. :) I told you it was abstract.

By the way, this fic happens to be the prequel to a story I'm planning. Do you think I should continue? The fic is about Zack and Cloud's 5 years in captivity. POV's will change, and I promise the story won't be as abstract as this. :)

Please review and tell me what you think.

-Cheers!  
-Penultima


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